Card holder for railway cars



A. E. SUPP.

CARD HOLDER FOR RAILWAY CARS. APPLICATION FILED DEC.3. 1920.

1,41 ,072, Patented May16, 1922.

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' Province of Quebec and Dominion of ALBERT EDWARD SOPIE, OF MONTREAL, QUEBEC, CANADA.

CARD IIOLDER FOR RAILRNAY CARS.

rai ers.

Specification of Letters Yatent. fatgntgd ltiay 16 1922 Applicationfiled December 3, 1920. Serial No. 428,015.

T 0 all whom it may concern."

Be it known that I, ALBERT EDWARD Sorr, a subject of the King of Great Britain, and resident of the city of Montreal, in the Canada, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Card Holders for Railway Cars, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

This invention relates to improvements in means for holding the'routing or other instruction cards which are attached to freight cars as a guide to train crews in handling same, and the object of theinvention is to provide a holder in which a card may be easily and quickly placed and from which it cannot be readily displaced by. accident.

A further object is to provide a holder which will not interfere with the easy reading of a card.

A still further object is to provide a holder which will protect a card against defacement by water running down the side of'a car.

At the present time, such holders as are provided are merely opentop frames attached to the side of a car into which the cards are dropped. The cards warp in wet weather, so that wind frequently gets under them and tears them. out of the holders. The cards are also frequently removed by mischievously inclined persons. .It also frequently happens that a card becomes so defaced with water running down the side of the car and over it and by depositsof dirt left by the waterthat it is illegible. Such holders are of so little use that they are frequently not used or if lost are never replaced, the cards being attached by driving tacks through the same into the car. Such a method is of course possible only with wooden or a wood sheathed car, so that the constantly increasing use of'metal cars makes a card holder essential. 7

According to the present invention, a card holder is provided comprising abase spaced awayfrom the car, so that water running down the car side will not come in contact with the card. The'base is provided with pins to hold a'card and'with a hinged front to retainthe card, the same being provided with an opening through which the card may be read. The front is retained in card holdingposition by a gravity actuated top which also forms a rain shed to protect the card.

shown 111 In the drawings which illustrate the invent1on;

v Fig. 1 is a front elevation of the device. Fig. 2' is a plan view partly in section on the line 22, Figure 1.

Fig. 3.is a side. elevation of the device closed.

Fig. 4- is a side elevation of the device in process of opening.

Fig. 5 is a vertical section on the line 5-5, Figure 1.

Referring more particularly to the drawings, 11 designates a base in the form of a rectangular plate having realrwardly eX- tending flanges 12 located preferably at the opposite vertical edges, said flanges terminating in feet 18 preferably outwardly turned for convenience in attaching the base to a car. The bottom and top edges of the plate are provided with tongues 14 which are bent to substantially cylindrical form to form parts'of hinges. One or more pins 15 are'struck up from the baseand project forwardly. These pins preferably have barbed heads, as clearly shown in Figure 5.

A front member 16 is provided having preferably at its opposite vertical edges rearwardly extending flanges 17 adapted to embrace the flanges 12 of the base, as clearly Figure 1. Preferably, the lower edge of this plate isprovided with tongues .18 bent to cylindrical form to constitute parts of a hinge, which may be connected to the corresponding parts 14 at the bottomof the base 11 by meansof a pin 19. I The front plate will thus be hingedly connected at its lower edge to the lower edge of the base, so that it will swing outwardly and downwardly.. Thecentral part of the plate 16 is cutaway to'pi'ovid'e'an opening'QO which is traversed by the bars of a grid 21. These bars may be integral with the plate or may be wires strung" across the opening 20 and attached at their ends to the plate. .The upper edge of the'plate is preferably corrugated, as at 22, to stiffenthe same.

A cover 23 is provided havlng at one edge tongues 24: bent to cylindrical form toconstitute hinge members c'o-operating with the corresponding parts 14: atthe top edge of the base and connected thereto byia pin 25. Thefopposite' orv free edge of the cover is rolled around a bar 26 which acts as a weight to hold the free edge of the cover normally depressed. At the ends of the cover, rearwardly projecting lugs 27 are provided which are positioned to swing clear of the base flanges 12 but are designed to engage the front flanges-17. These lugs and the cover plate itself are stiffened by rearwardly or downwardly projecting end flanges 28. One or more corrugations 29 are provided in the cover forming projections on the lower side thereof adapted to normally lie infront of the upper edge of the front plate 16 and to form front holding means. I

The operation of the device is extremely simple. Assuming the holder to be in its normal closed position shown in Figure 3, the cover is swung upwardly to the position shown in Figure i, so that the weighted free edge thereof will rest against the side of a car and the cover will remain in this position. As the cover plate swings upwardly, the-lugs 2'7 thereof swing downwardly and, when the cover is in approximately vertical position, these lugs engage the flanges 17 of the front. During the ,movement of the cover from vertical position to its inclined position of rest shown in Figure 4, these lugs 2? swing the upper end of the front forwardly, so that the weight of the front is brought outside the hinge pin, with the result that the front falls by gravity to the position indicated in dotted lines, Figure It will thus be seen that the holder is opened with a single motion, that is, the lifting of the cover. The, card is then impaled on the pin orv pins 15 projecting from the base plate. Thefront is returned to its original position, so as to cover the edges of the card and to retain the body of the card by means of the grid 21 without obscuring the inscriptions on the card. In the final closing movement of the front, the flanges 17 thereof strike the lugs 27 of the cover and swing the same from its position of rest through a vertical position, so that the Weighted edge lies in front of the hinge pin 25. The cover will then fall by the force of gravity to the original position indicated in Figure 3. When the cover falls, the corrugations or projections 29 thereof occupy positions in front of the front plate and hold the same against swinging outwardly. It will be noted in Figure 4 that the upper ends of these corrugations occupy a vertical plane coincident with the front surface of the front plate, so that the front plate will not exert a wedging action serving to lift the cover and release itself.

'The advantages of the holder are very nearly obvious. It may be opened and closed and a card placed therein all with one hand, so that a person whose other hand is occupied with holding a number of cards, a

lantern or the like, will have no difliculty in operating it. The entire operation occupies only a few seconds and in fact not any longer than is necessary to place a card in cover to swing the such holders as are at present in use and much less time than is required to attach a card by means of tacks. in cold weather, the device may be operated quite as readily by a mittened hand as by a bare hand, whereas the practice of tacking cards on, necessitates bare hands. If the device should be improperly closed or if it should be opened by vibration or by children, the card will remain impaled'upon the pins 15 and, owing to the barbed heads of the pins, will be about as secure as cards tacked on. The card is held away from the sideof a car and protected by the base plate, so that it will not be blurred by water running down the side of the car or obscured by dirt washed from the sides of the carby water. The cover plate projects a considerable distance beyond the front, as will be readily seen, and therefore forms a rain-shed which will protect most if not all of the card from rain or snow. The total projection beyond the side of a car is so little that there is practically no possibility of the holder being torn off. In fact, the projection is not any greater than the pro jection of the doors and in the case of outside frame cars the holder is entirely protected by the frame members. The device may be constructed very easily and cheaply, preferably of sheet metal, and is of such simple construction that there is nothing about it to get out of order, When it is desired to remove cards, the holder is opened and the card simply pulled ofi the pins 15, which operation may be easily accomplished. It will 'be noted that the flanges 28 of .the

cover overlie the ends of the hinge pin 25 and guard the same against loss or removal.

The same effect may be produced in the bottom hinge by slightly extending the front flanges 17. The device may then be assembled either by bending down the end flanges after the hinge pins are in place or by bending the hinge forming lugs 18 and 24 around 1ghe pins after the same are in place on the ase.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim is 1. A card holder comprising a base, an aperturedfront plate hingedly connected thereto, a cover hinged to the base and normally holding the front )late against the base, and lugs carried'by said cover positioned to engage the front plate during opening of the front plate away from the base.

2.1%. card holding device comprising a base, a cover hingedly connected thereto and adapted torest in either open or closed positions, a front plate hingedly connected to 12 the base adapted on closing to engage said cover and initiate closing movement thereof.

3. A card holder comprisinga base, an apertured card holding front plate, and a cover hingedly connected to opposite edges of said base, said cover being engageable during opening with the front plate to initiate opening movement of the front plate and the front plate being engageable during closing with the cover to initiate closing movement thereof.

at. A card holding device comprising a base, a cover hingedly connected to the upper edge of the base and mounted. to rest in either open or closed position by the action of gravity, an apertured card holding front plate hingedly connected to the lower edge of said base and adapted to swing by the ac.- tion of gravity to open position, said front late being normally held against the front Base by the cover, but adapted to pass out of engagement with the cover when moving to open position.

5. In combination with a device according to claim 4, lugs on the cover engageable during opening with the front plate to initiate opening movement of the front plate, said front plate being engageable during closing with the open cover to initiate closing movement thereof.

6. A card holder for railway cars, comprising a sheet metal base, having its ends turned back to be secured to the wall of the car, so as to space the body of the plate away from the wall and thus provide a vertical drip passage between the wall and the rear face of the plate,said passage extending substantially for the entire length and width of the plate andmeans for retaining the card on the front face of the plate without obstructing the said passage.

7. A card holder comprising a base plate to be secured to the wall of a car, a front clamping plate hinged to the lower edge of said base plate, and a cover hinged'to the upper edge of the base plate, and s wingable to either side of the hinged connection, said cover being adapted to rest against the wall of the car when disposed upon one side of the hinged connection and to engage the upper edge of the clamping plate when disposed upon the opposite side of the hinged connection. i

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand.

ALBERT EDWARD sorr. 

